The Colorado Supreme Court launched the Left’s latest attack on American Democracy.
Earlier this year a lawsuit was filed against former President Donald Trump, alleging that his actions related to the January 6th Capitol riot violated the 14th Amendment. Specifically, the suit claimed that Trump's involvement in the riot disqualified him from holding public office under the 14th Amendment's disqualification clause, which bars individuals who have engaged in insurrection against the United States.
By a 4-3 vote, the CO Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment makes Trump ineligible for the ballot for 2024.
The decision is laughable on its face, and the latest ‘Death by 1000 cuts to Democracy’ effort by the Left.
On the bright side, even 3 Democrats on the Court were sane enough to dissent from the decision and scold the majority.
The ensuing back and forth banter on Twitter and the media trying to bolster or debunk the decision is amusing to watch and matters for the narrative warfare, but in the end, both sides are giving these Judges way too much credit.
The decision is pure emotional TDS thinking divorced from any real outcomes. It’s arriving at the desired conclusion and then twisting the law, language and Constitutional history to derive at the desired outcome.
Quite simply, it’s MSNBC rage-bait overconsumption writ large.
Regardless, it will have zero legal effect on the 2024 primary election.
The Colorado Court majority did something very rare. They inserted a clause in their decision that basically says, “Hey we know this decision is super controversial (and super kooky), so we’ll pause it from going into effect until after the Supreme Court weighs in.
As long as President Trump appeals the decision to the US Supreme Court, the Colorado court stays (pauses) their own ruling – essentially indefinitely.
The Colorado primary ballots will be printed and the primary election will be long over, before the Supreme Court even puts this on their docket.
So Trump will be on the ballot, but the CO partisans get to issue a judgement that will make headlines for the next few months. And if lucky, they will enrage some people on the Right sufficiently to do something stupid that the media can then run with as well.
This is deeps seated corruption and TDS rage disguised as legitimate legal analysis.
If you look at the 14th Amendment and the CO decision, it is based on analyzing two key elements of the Disqualification Clause below:
The Disqualification Clause is located in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. It states that no person shall hold any office, civil or military, under the United States or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. However, Congress may remove such disability by a two-thirds vote in each House.
Both clauses openly fail and if we're talking plain language & history. There's no debate the clause was originally drafted expressly to apply to Confederates that waged war against the US during the Civil War.
As far as the jurisdictional element, other parts of the Constitution explicitly name or differentiate btw the President or 'Officers of the US when referring to clauses that cover Presidential actions/behavior (Impeachment, Commissions and Appointments Clause).
There's even a recent case that expressly tackles the 'Officers of the US' language that is the only part of that clause that can remotely be said to apply. The Court denies that it does.
In Free Enter. Fund v. Pub. Co. Accounting Oversight Bd. (2010), Chief Justice Roberts observed that "[t]he people do not vote for the 'Officers of the United States.'" Rather, "officers of the United States" are appointed exclusively pursuant to Article II, Section 2 procedures. It follows that the President, who is an elected official, is not an "officer of the United States."
And of course, the Disqualification clause requires a conviction. Without a conviction, I can stand on a box on the street corner and find Joe Biden guilty of insurrection for allowing 10M+ illegals into the country without vetting overwhelming the country's security, health and resource precautions. The open border policy has done far more damage to the country and usurped the laws than a one day boisterous riot.
Due process (hell, the 14th Amendment is known as THE Due Process Clause) is required in this and any similar situation - the right to present evidence, confront your accusers, trial by a jury of peers and all those other pesky civil liberty amendments in the Bill of Rights.
It’s amusing to see the opposite takes on Twitter and elsewhere about what a well-reasoned decision this was and how it will undoubtedly go into effect.
And I’m willing to put some skin in the game for those that disagree with me.
I’ll bet $1K in BTC to any and all ‘smart people on the Left’ that the Supremes don't let the ruling stand.
Put your money where your mouth is if you think I’m wrong.
This J6 ‘insurrection’ narrative continues to be one of the most absurd psyops we’ve ever witnessed.
As more and more pictures, videos and testimony have leaked out over the last year (against the efforts of Dems to keep it hidden), the average American (65%) sees the entire portrayal of the event as more and more ridiculous according to recent polls.
A so-called ‘rebellion’ of unarmed people strolling through the Capitol taking selfies where not a single person was killed (except by the Capitol Police) hardly meets the media portrayal that this was “worse than 9/11”.
It beggars belief for any serious person to call the gathering on January 6th to protest an election riddled with fraud a rebellion or insurrection.
The CO Supreme Court decision is just the latest illegal and outrageous maneuver to frustrate the Democratic will of the people and prevent Trump (or any non-uniparty Republican) from being elected or exercising his Presidential powers while in office.
This is the naked continuation of the ruling Regime’s efforts to remove Trump from the playing field by any means possible. It’s a lightweight successor to the:
Soft coup known as the Russia Collusion Hoax after Trump was elected in 2016 even before he took office
2 Bogus Impeachments (one of which was for a phone call Trump made to inquire about the massive corruption we’ve seen revealed about Hunter and Joe Biden in Ukraine
4 Novel and Specious Cases and Prosecutions brought by the very ‘Special’ Counsel and 2 diversity hire midwits from New York and Atlanta.
Even some of the Democratic Judges on the Colorado Kangaroo Court had the integrity to call out this farce for what it is.
This marks the latest chapter in the Democrats' and Left's strategic legal chess game, aiming to checkmate Trump's ambitions of returning to office.
Echoing my previous musings, these tactics are remarkably tenuous and quasi-legal, akin to the political chess played in Venezuela, Russia, or other authoritarian regimes. In those scenarios, we often tut-tut at their disdain for democratic norms, urging them to "Embrace Democracy!" and let the populace's voice elect their leader. Yet, here we are, dancing a similar dance.
The Democrats' strategy seems to be a game of two halves: firstly, a Hail Mary pass, hoping against hope that a court with partisan leanings (take a bow, Colorado!) might actually take the leap to declare Trump ineligible for the ballot. Secondly, it's part of an ongoing campaign to chip away at the credibility of the Supreme Court, the one branch that remains relatively unscathed by political maneuverings – though Justice Roberts, with whispers of Epstein links, might raise eyebrows.
Any legal eagle worth their salt, or a party strategist with their ear to the ground, would bet the house on the failure of these disqualification attempts under the 14th Amendment. Why? Trump hasn’t even been tagged with a charge of insurrection, let alone convicted.
And there's a good reason for that. When you sift through his actions, there's no smoking gun pointing to an intent to topple the government. It looks more like a determined push to legally contest an election outcome peppered with a not-so-small serving of fraud and irregularities.
In fact, despite the desperate spin of the J6 Committee and it’s PR lapdogs in the media, Trump’s actions speak the opposite.
Especially the series of texts he issued on that date culminating with the crystal clear order to - “GO HOME”.
Notably, that text was intentionally deleted by Twitter soon after Trump put it up.
If that’s not evidence this was a setup, I don’t know what is.
The part that continues to amaze me is that the Left only moves with a tunnel-vision focus on what’s immediately before them.
There’s no consideration ever for two things: 1) what are the secondary effects of jailing or killing the lead opposition candidate and most popular politician in the nation; and 2) what happens if the shoe is on the other foot when the other side takes power.
In other words, if Trump or Republicans return to power (and maybe they act this way because they’re confident that will never happen), what will it look like if Republicans utilize the same tactics and measures the Left currently implements?
In light of the above, the screams of ‘Trump will be a dictator’ are particularly ironic.
Literally, everything the Dems accuse Trump of potentially doing they are already doing themselves.
It’s Goebbels-level Gaslighting 101 pulled straight from their ideological idol, Saul Alinsky:
"Accuse your opponent of what you are doing, to create confusion and to inculcate voters against evidence of your own guilt."
Trump was relentlessly and falsely accused of being a Russian colluder and spy, smeared in a vicious campaign of lies and deceit. The Mueller investigation unequivocally cleared him: "no collusion, no obstruction," a resounding declaration of his innocence.
Yet ironically and unsurprisingly, it was Hillary Clinton who was neck-deep in collusion with Russia. Her camp with Obama’s blessing fabricated the discredited Steele Dossier, the shaky foundation of the FISA warrants and the entire Russia Collusion farce. As Secretary of State, she was dealing uranium to the Russians, and her private email server, reportedly loaded with top-secret information, was allegedly a marketplace for clandestine deals with adversaries like Russia and China.
Then there's the impeachment saga: Trump was wrongfully impeached over baseless accusations of manipulating Ukrainian military aid. In stark contrast, it was Joe Biden, as Vice President, who actually leveraged aid to Ukraine to force the firing of Prosecutor Shokin. And let's not forget Hunter Biden enriching his family with financial windfalls from foreign entities, including China, Russia and Ukraine, by exploiting and selling access to his father.
This is not just a story of political rivalry; it's a saga of deep-seated corruption and abuse of power at the highest levels inverted by the guilty to accuse their opponents of the same.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a viable off-ramp. As the temperature and extra-Constitutional measures continue to be turned up, it can only end one way.
The rational response to someone trying to destroy you, is to fight back with the same ferocity and conviction as your opponent.
The Colorado decision has hues of other turning points in history such as the Archduke of Ferdinand’s assassination or attack on Fort Sumter. While seemingly important at the time, they became more impactful through the lens of history.
And even though the CO decision will be meaningless from a legal point of view, it feels important. Quite frankly, it feels like an open declaration of WAR on a large part of the country.
It brings to mind the famous quote by Carl von Clausewitz, "War is the continuation of politics by other means." This condenses the idea that war is an extension of political conflict. It suggests that when traditional diplomatic negotiations fail, nations resort to armed conflict to achieve their political objectives.
Having failed at politics and governing over the past 3 years as the polls conclusively demonstrate, Democrats are now embracing those ‘other means’, even if they are illegal or unconstitutional.
And if the tables are turned, what do you think will happen when Trump or the Republicans are in power? Do you think they will react kindly and mercifully to being mandated, canceled, censored, slandered, disenfrachised, threatened and jailed?
I can understand why Dems don’t want to find out.
But make no mistake, they’re the ones that unequivocally put us here.
And whether we move from the current Grey Zone (everything short of outright murder and open armed warfare (which they’re conditioning us for in 2024 as the recent trailer to Alex Garland’s Civil War indicates)), to outright kinetic conflict, the blood is ultimately on Democrat hands.
If you want an analog for what it will sound like if things move that direction, look no further than the Gaza conflict.
In the event of a political reversal, expect the Democrats to pivot swiftly, clamoring for clemency and a staunch adherence to constitutional doctrines. This would mirror the tactics of conflict parties like Hamas, who often backtrack and demand mercy, despite having initiated hostilities and committing some of the most barbaric acts ever witnessed.
This pattern of initiating conflict and then failing to accept responsibility is a historical constant. In conflicts, the aggressor, once defeated, typically finds themselves at the mercy of their adversary's response, which could range from severe retaliation to magnanimity.
Take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an example. Despite repeated aggressions, Israel and Western allies have chosen a path of considerable restraint. They've not only allowed for the existence of their opponents but have also invested billions of dollars and countless efforts in fostering peace, demonstrating a remarkable level of mercy.
If Trump were to reassume presidency, his response to those who opposed him might be less predictable and potentially more unyielding. At a minimum, it would be a rational move to disarm and defang those trying to kill you.
In the context of American ‘Democracy’, that’s not a pretty sight.
Either way it ends, it ends with some degree of fascism if we continue on this trajectory.
Whether that’s the type of fascism that has seemingly characterized the Left's tactics since 2016: quasi-coup attempts like the Russia Collusion narrative, pervasive censorship and social ostracism, and aggressive legal tactics….or a darker more extreme turn into a page out of the playbook of Mao or Stalin is uncertain.
Whether it’s the ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ approach, it also sets up retribution from the Right if they regain power. That won’t be pretty either.
Regardless, I fear it will be the end of the American experiment one way or the other if cooler heads don’t prevail soon. It is imperative that more measured and rational voices prevail, particularly within the Left. There's a critical need for them to reduce their onslaught on democratic principles and to cease the politicization of the legal system and law enforcement. Only then can we steer away from this dangerous course.
Here’s the latest from Victor Davis Hanson summing up this anti-Democratic spectacle.
The Colorado Insurrection
Donald Trump is being erased from the Colorado primary (and general?) ballot, by warping the 14th Amendment, and in a way never envisioned by its creators.
So now can one be guilty by fiat of Confederacy-like “insurrection,” when he has never been charged with, much less convicted of, such a crime?
How can a buffoonish January 6th riot become an “insurrection,” when no one was armed, there was no plan to seize power, and protestors were advised by the purported insurrectionist leader “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”?
As far as election insurrectionary interference, why did liberal journalist Molly Ball label the leftwing effort to defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 election a “cabal” (e.g., “That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information”)?
And why did Ball double-down and further call it a “conspiracy” (“There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans, of CEOs, Silicon Valley billionaires, street protestors…Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears.”)?
As far as efforts to nullify the popular vote, do we remember the pathetic 2016 ensemble of C-list Hollywood celebrities (e.g., Martin Sheen, Debra Messing, James Cromwell, BD Wong, Noah Wyle, Freda Payne, Bob Odenkirk, J. Smith Cameron, Michael Urie, Moby, Mike Farrell, Loretta Swit, Christine Lahti, Steven Pasquale, Dominic Fumusa and Emily Tyra)?
They were drafted by leftwing groups to cut commercials urging the electors to reject their constitutional duties of reflecting their states’ popular votes, and instead, as faithless electors, to vote instead for Hillary Clinton, the loser in their respective states’ popular votes.
How did they rationalize that anti-constitutional gambit? Well, remember Martin Sheen’s shameless sophistry to ignore the Constitution and the election results?
“As you know, our founding fathers built the Electoral College to safeguard the American people from the dangers of a demagogue, and to ensure that the presidency only goes to someone who is to an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”
So what makes a high elected official an insurrectionist?
Current or past advocacy for using violence against the government, as represented by, say, the Supreme Court?
Or urging on more protests that had already turned violent, eventually leading to 35 deaths, 1,500 injured police officers, $1-2 billion in property damage, and a torched courthouse, police headquarters, and iconic church?
Attempting to break into the White House grounds? Sending the president into a secure underground bunker?
If so, remember Kamala Harris’s summer 2020 boasts about the protests that, she knew (contrary to “fact checkers”) had already a long history of violence:
“But they're not gonna stop. They're not gonna stop, and this is a movement, I'm telling you. They're not gonna stop, and everyone beware, because they're not gonna stop. They're not gonna stop before Election Day in November, and they're not gonna stop after Election Day. Everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they're not going to let up — and they should not. And we should not.”
What was the Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer intending, when in 2020 he incited a throng at the very doors of the Supreme Court, warning of violence to come to two justices whom he called out by name?
“I want to tell you Gorsuch. I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
“Hit you”?
Now we have ballot suppression to add to the long list of farces, hoaxes, and lies all designed to destroy a candidate who otherwise might win popular support for an agenda the majority of Americans have consistently supported.
So the leftwing Colorado Justices join the “Russian collusion” spectacle, the Alfa Bank “pink” hoax, the “Russian disinformation” laptop ruse, the precedent breaking two impeachments of a president in his first term, the caper of trying an ex-president as a private citizen in the senate, and the ploy of raiding an ex-president’s home.
What exactly is the Left doing?
They accept they have no majority support for the current President or his agenda. They fear the voters will elect a Republican. They are horrified that it might be Donald Trump, whom they especially loathe. And they are terrified that Trump might do to them what they would certainly do if they were in his position.
The Left is mightily frustrated that after controlling all the sources of information, communications, and institutions (e.. CEOs, traditional and social media, entertainment, the Internet, Silicon Valley, academia, K-12, foundations, sports, and popular culture, etc.), and having a vast advantage in fund raising and money, they still cannot stop the will of the majority.
And the Left wages lawfare because they assume the Right is either too timid, too incompetent, too preoccupied, or too principled to reciprocate in kind—especially given they gloat that there were never any consequences for all the past hoaxes and ruses they perpetuated.
But this time they may have jumped the proverbial shark and shown themselves to be the true and only insurrectionists that will face the consequences of any angry public in November 2024.
X Has Already Won
As I’ve written repeatedly, there has been no greater act of to preserve Democracy and Western Civilization than Elon Musk’s purchase and liberation of Twitter (X).
Remember the outrageous garbage the Democrats and media got away with when they tightly controlled the conversation in conjunction with their handmaidens in Big Tech. We saw a wave of censorship and cancellation that altered the narrative and national conversation and permitted the following to take place:
Russia Collusion Hoax and Soft Coup
Election Fraud in 2018 and 2020
The excesses of the Covid Pandemic including masking, lockdowns and forced uptake of an experimental vaccine that was neither safe nor effective (all cause mortality, cancer and heart issues are still massively higher than before or during Covid)
The J6 Fraud.
Open borders.
The Biden Crime Family’s massive corruption and bribery scheme.
Everything else that took place during 2015-2022 when law enforcement and Big Tech were working overtime to erase free speech and the opinions of half our countrymen.
Thank you Elon for leveling the playing field and allowing a rebirth of free speech and truth to blossom in the sunlight (or mis/disinformation, as the Left calls it).
Here’s @farzyness with an eagle-eyed assessment of what Elon has wrought:
X Has Already Won
Elon Musk closed the acquisition of Twitter, now X, in October of 2022. Once that deal was closed, a bunch of advertisers left the platform out of fear of their brands being impacted by the new “Freedom of Speech” rules that X was looking to implement.
The premise was that ads would be shown next to content that advertisers don’t want to be associated with, and because X would now allow more “improper” content, the chances of having a negative ad experience could increase.
After leaving the platform for a few weeks, almost all advertisers have come back, albeit with lower ad spends. However, earlier this year, X gave guidance that the platform is near cash-flow neutral, minus debt obligations. This means that even though the platform has suffered losses in terms of ad revenue, the company is close to being self-sufficient.
In other words, no outside cash has to be brought into the company to keep it alive, as long as the trend continues.
Fast forward a few months, and after controversial comments made by Elon and an effort by Media Matters to encourage advertisers to boycott the platform, advertisers left again.
However - just like the first time, after a few weeks, advertisers are beginning to come back. There’s confirmation that Netflix has started to spend ad money on the platform again, and per Elon at his recent conference in Italy, advertisers are beginning to come back to the platform en masse.
I think all of this points to something quite clear - the Overton Window is beginning to shift, and with it, a massively profitable endeavor for advertisers.
For those that are not familiar, the Overton Window is a term used to express what is “acceptable” to be discussed in a given time period. If you compare what is acceptable to be discussed on X today, vs what was acceptable on Twitter pre-acquisition, you can very clearly see that the “acceptable” topics are much more diverse and plentiful. This means that the Overton Window has shifted.
Another example of this is also on YouTube. A few days ago, Mario Nawful hosted a space with Elon Musk, Alex Jones, Andrew Tate, and other folks discussing Alex’s reinstatement and a bunch of other topics. These topics pre-acquisition would not be admissible under Twitter’s former rules. What’s really interesting is that after making this edited content available on YouTube, YouTube has a) not taken down the content from the platform and b) allowed monetization on the content.
This implies that advertisers are now becoming comfortable advertising on content that they weren’t comfortable with in the past.
What does this mean for X? It’s quite simple - X’s willingness to stand for Free Speech, even when the CEO makes statements that cause the business to temporarily lose revenue, is creating a brand new market for advertisers that previously did not exist precisely due to an unwillingness to embrace Freedom of Speech.
And because X’s entire approach has been to uphold Freedom of Speech and accept the repercussions that come with it, the platform has positioned itself as the premier place for content that will be generated on this principle.
This same content is a market that advertisers have had 0 access to in the past because of the unwillingness of platforms to embrace Freedom of Speech, and the skittishness of ad agencies to sully their brands with controversial topics. On top of this, it’s a market that is untapped, which will generate billions of views, and billions of dollars, for creators and advertisers alike.
I do not suspect we’ll see another advertisers boycott in the future because of this dynamic. There’s way too much money to be made, and now that the Overton Window has shifted to where the “public” is now “comfortable” with listening to dissenting and controversial opinions, advertisers will be tripping over themselves to advertise on X over the long term.
In my opinion, people respect the notion of being allowed to think for themselves, and because this has been subdued for far too long, there will be an avalanche of interest for content that is specifically challenging and controversial. Ultimately, this will be massively profitable for advertisers due to the engagement and attention it’ll receive from the public.
I posited when Elon bought the platform that X would win if they could make Freedom of Speech profitable, and I think we’re starting to see glimpses of this being the case.
Bad Math
Keep a close eye on Operation Prosperity Guardian and the fallout between allies.
This situation also serves as a litmus test for the United States' dedication to its role as the global maritime authority, a role that is both costly and often unappreciated.
Furthermore, it's a crucial indicator of our military's preparedness for conflict. Analysts have long cautioned about the declining state of our military's readiness and morale under the Biden administration, predicting dire outcomes. Coupled with the debacle in Afghanistan, the deterrent force that was meticulously built over three decades seems to have diminished significantly.
Finally, bear in mind the economics of low-grade asymmetric warfare against big, sitting billion dollar targets.
US Destroyers in the region have shot down dozens of Houthi/Iranian drone attacks. That’s a good thing. But at a cost of $2M per missile to shoot down a $2000 drone, the math quickly becomes burdensome.
It’s not farfetched that China, Iran and others will be able to manufacture these small suicide drones for close to $1000 a pop. Make tens or even hundreds of thousands a month, and that’s a war of attrition we can’t win defensively.
If you think the Gaza conflict has a lot of casualties, just wait until we lose a destroyer or two and decide that a buffer zone or deterrent means a JDAM snowstorm over Taiz or Tehran.
Two Quick Covid Laughs
The Deep State/Big Pharma machine is still at it. And why wouldn’t they be? After all, not a single person has paid a price for the original release of the bioweapon, the unconstitutional measures enacted in response or the widespread mandates of an experimental injection with the worst safety profile of any product in history.
It boggles my gddamn mind….but it remains rational.
No consequences means no incentive to change behavior or make amends.
Case in point - here’s an ad from People Magazine I saw while in the post office.
Yep, you can “Zen that body” and “do what you do to stay healthy”, but nothing says real health like a genetic experiment known to cause myocarditis, cancer and a whole host of other health issues while providing close to zero protection.
And here was a glorious article from the WSJ about how Pfizer helped ‘save the world’ but now it’s stock is making new 52 week lows every week. In fact, it recently traded to a 10 year low wiping out all of its ill-begotten blood money it earned from Covid.
Yeah, it helped save the world.
And Bill Cosby helped save women in Hollywood with Rohypnol. Now he needs to right himself.
It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic and serious.
As I mentioned above, all-cause mortality is still running historically high and study after study has shown that those who are vaxxed are more likely to catch Covid, and be hospitalized or die (negative efficacy).
Even Bloomberg which has become a left-wing rag under the guise of a financial website admitted recently that getting a Covid Vaccine that “works” would be nice.
I’ve said for more than 3 years now, the key to moving forward as a country and a Democracy is holding these people accountable. Until that happens, they will run the same playbooks and continue to engage in open lawfare and warfare on the American people.
In Celebration of Christmas
Every Christmas Eve since 1949 the Wall Street Journal has been publishing the same editorial by Vermont C. Royster (italics are mine).
Vermont Connecticut Royster (April 30, 1914 - July 22, 1996) was an American journalist whose career at The Wall Street Journal spanned half a century. Royster was no ordinary journalist, he studied literature and classical languages—Latin and Greek —and his writings reflected these influences. He tackled the issues that affected people in their everyday lives with thoughtful insight, touching on the essentials of life. He had an unfailing faith in the American people and in the greatness of the United States as a country blessed by God. His Christmas and Thanksgiving editorials, reprinted every year since Royster wrote them, continue to resonate with people's desires for freedom, peace, and prosperity in a world filled with challenges.
The Wall Street Journal
When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.
Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.
But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression — for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?
There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?
Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.
And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.
So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.
But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.
Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.
Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter’s star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.
And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
A beautiful essay in the vein of CS Lewis’ “What Christmas Means to Me (1957).
Douglas Groothuis - What Christmas Means to Me.
What I’m Reading and Watching….
Someone call 911…I’d like to report a murder. Douglas Murray ends Cenk Uygur.
Dr. Carol Swain has “some free unsolicited advice for Harvard University:
1. Stop listening to the apologists for plagiarism.
2. Fire Claudine Gay posthaste. She can be relieved of duties until the terms are negotiated.
3. Stop listening to the racist mob of whites and blacks who cry racism while being among the worst offenders.
4. Hire the best man or woman who can steer the university back towards sanity. Appeasing the Marxist identity politics mob should not be a consideration. The person for the job might be a middle to older age white Jewish man who believes in classical liberalism.
5. Have a sit down conversation with the people who have been harmed by the plagiarism of Gay and the system that protects her.
6. Recognize that Harvard’s systematic racism and classism have far reaching effects.
7. Apologize to alumni, students, parents, and donors who have been harmed and embarrassed.”
Tucker Carlson LIVE From TPUSA w/Tim Pool, Seamus Coughlin, Charlie Kirk
The video is long but fantastic. Begin here at 37min with the conversation on aliens and forces of good and evil. Watch for 10 minutes (I ended up watching another 45 min as they cover Trump’s choice of VP, AI and a lot of other great topics).
Perhaps one of the more interesting takes from Tucker is that technology has made the world worse in the last 40 years since his childhood. People are unhappier and unhealthier for sure. It’s a controversial, heterodox take and probably one that deserves more discussion. 👇👇
https://www.youtube.com/live/StIg17e3TKE?feature=shared&t=2203
Best of Twitter
Memetic Warfare
Parting Words….
That’s it for this week folks! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Might be a brief one next week as it’s New Year Eve but will be back to normal the following week.
Love your column - always look forward to reading it Mike.
Excellent roundup and the spiciest memes! Much appreciated.